Why This Blog

I am a fairly average middle-aged woman who loves to hike, run, swim, and fence (as in with swords not picket). I love to read, study and take college classes on interesting subjects just for fun. I am a professional artist and art teacher.

I think I'd be a great neighbor. I 'd watch your kids in an emergency, bake cookies for you for no good reason, take you out to lunch on your birthday.

Nothing there to grab much attention. Just me, living the adventure of my life and trying to be there for the people I love.

Well, September 25th 2008 my leg was 'chopped off', as my daughter likes to bluntly state it. You see, Aug of 2000 I was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma. I survived a year of chemo and radiation and surgeries; complications of which left me crippled and and chronically ill and led finally to the amputation of my left leg at the knee--technically called a knee dis-articulation.

How does the one-legged woman who loves the adventure that is life get on with 'things'?

Fencing, my favorite sport, will I ever do it again? A walk on the beach? A hike? Even something as simple as carrying that plate of cookies while climbing the stairs of your porch without losing my balance and falling . . .

How do I define myself now that I am a cripple? The adventure girl wants her life back.

So, here on this Walk with Magi, we will explore the adventures of shopping, going to school, housework, wearing a fake leg, physical therapy - taking care of the normal everyday life with one leg.

Here you will also find a little of my art and photography, my thoughts about religion, politics, education, health care, popular culture, and, sushi and chocolate; because those are just a few of the things that inform my life's adventure.

Thank you for taking the time to share a walk with me. Please let me know what you think - compliments will earn 'cookie points' ;-D

(Unless otherwise noted, all writing, photos and art work is the intellectual property of and is copyrighted by Magi MJMHernandez. Thank You)

Favorite Quotes

"I'm not eccentric. I occupy the center and all the rest is bizarre" - Werner Herzog, director

"For rhythm was the wheel of Eternity, on which alone the transient and accidental could be broken, and the spirit set free" -- one of my favorite lines penned by W.B. Yeats

"Procrastination is attitude's natural assassin. There is nothing so fatiguing as an uncompleted task." - William James,

"Songs are just interesting things to do do with the air - - - We love music, but what we really want is for music to love us." - Tom Watts

"Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved" -Thomas S. Monson

"Care, Love, Share. Three very nice verbs. You can think about them, talk about them, even feel them, but until you DO them they don't exist." - Magi Hernandez

"I have discovered . . . that love devoid of understanding, although it can bring comfort and solace, can never heal"- Brian Thorne

"When you get hurt in life, two things can happen; you can lose heart, or get a bigger one." - OneArmGirl -

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. - J.R.R. Tolkien

"If you’re alive, you got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you’re quiet, you’re not living." - - Mel Brook

"I would not creep along the coast, but steer out in mid-sea, by the guidance of the stars." - George Eliot

"Only one thing matters - that wherever we go and however we go we hear the music of life" - Theodor Fontane

"Life is more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party." - Jimmy Buffet